


Poet

by resolutioninclockwork



Series: The Playlist [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, writing as catharsis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 07:50:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11916435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resolutioninclockwork/pseuds/resolutioninclockwork
Summary: Varric finds a way through his grief after Adamant.





	Poet

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by "Poet" by Bastille  
> https://open.spotify.com/track/02Aw6IyFursVr67JbQrb1l

_I can't say the words out loud  
So in rhyme I wrote you down_

They’d been back in Skyhold for days now, but Varric still hadn’t found his feet. Adamant had taken its toll on all of them in various ways, but he seemed to be having the most trouble bouncing back.

He sat in his usual seat, right in the middle of all the bustling business Skyhold dealt with daily, but he wasn’t paying attention to any of it. He just couldn’t seem to focus.

He’d lost friends before. Kirkwall wasn’t kind to most of its residents, and grief wasn’t anywhere near a new concept to him. Hawke was different, though – larger than life and seemingly immortal. Invulnerable. If Hawke could fall… How could the rest of them hope to survive?

Someone had left a worn copy of _Tales of the Champion_ sitting at the far end of the table, and he found himself staring balefully at it more often than he cared to admit. Sure, it made for a great story, and it wasn’t entirely a lie.

But it wasn’t her. Not really.

For all his books, Varric wasn’t always the best at telling people what they meant to him. Spoken words were so much more complicated than written ones, and stories couldn’t wrench his gut the same way.

Time to make his amends, pay his respects, and let Hawke live forever.

 

***

_Obsession, it takes control  
Obsession, it eats me whole_

He didn’t even notice as time passed.

Days blended together, and still he wrote like a madman – desperate to catch each stray memory of who she had really been, not just the flash and spark of the Champion the world thought she was.

Cole had taken to leaving him plates of food at random times, making sure he had at least something to keep him going. It didn’t necessarily match the scheduled meal times, but there was always a bite to hand when he started to flag.

Cassandra had even shown her version of support, stopping by every so often to look him over and rest a hand on his shoulder. She didn’t speak, but she didn’t really have to.

When he finally stepped outside for a moment to stretch his legs and track down more paper, he found Cullen standing just outside the doors. They stood side by side, watching the sun tilt its way towards the horizon, breathing in the evening air. He drew in a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them there was a gloved hand holding a flask in front of him.

“Curly?”

“We won’t forget, Varric.”

They spent the evening on the battlement stairs, watching the sun disappear and not forgetting over cheap liquor. When he finally returned, there was a fresh bundle of paper and some new quills on his seat.

 

***

_I have read her with these eyes, I have read her with these eyes  
I have held her in these hands_

It turned out to be more difficult than he envisioned.

Getting her just right was a challenge he hadn’t expected to tackle. She was so grand and explosive most of the time – the stories wrote themselves, really. This was quieter, though, and he found himself struggling to show what he remembered so vividly.

She’d come back battered, bruised, sliced, stabbed – and he’d helped to bandage so many of those wounds. He was there while she recovered, in those vulnerable moments where each person shows their weaknesses fully, and he couldn’t find the words to describe just how that had felt.

She covered her scars with jokes and sarcasm, but he’d been close enough to see how she trembled sometimes. How the slice to her leg made her occasionally stutter on the stairs, or the way that her left pinky didn’t entirely curl when she made a fist.

Even broken, bleeding, and sometimes nearly dead, she’d been concerned about all of them. She’d loved hard, keeping them all close no matter how violently they’d disagreed. The Queen of Bad Decisions never felt like she could pass judgment on any of her companions, and she’d followed each of them into dangerous nonsense at one point or another.

Even Anders, using her to help craft the explosion at the chantry – she’d defended him. Helped him get out of the city when anyone else would have – and had! – called for his head.

It had never mattered, and now it mattered more than any story he’d yet written. He just hadn’t quite gotten it right yet.

 

***

 _Your body lies upon the sheets_  
Of paper, and words so sweet  
I can't say the words  
So I wrote you into my verse

He’d discarded more pages than ever before, even when writing his serials. Nothing quite sounded right. It never resonated, never rang true.

It wasn’t until he’d gone back looking for a certain note that it clicked for him.

“Everyone has a story they tell themselves to justify bad decisions... and it never matters. In the end, you are always alone in your actions.”

She had always done what she believed was right, but it hadn’t been alone.

 

***

_Now you live through the ages  
I can feel your pulse in the pages_

The letters poured in. Tiny slivers of the way Hawke had touched the residents in Kirkwall, snippets of a public life in the private moments she’d shared with those around her.

Word of his request had spread quickly, and people were eager to share. They all unified in a small shared goal, and the sheer number of stories to compile was overwhelming.

The first bag of letters had been a shock to his core. He hadn’t realized just how raw he still was, and the letters were exactly what he’d been trying to express. He hadn’t quite read through half of them before he had to sneak off to a quiet corner to hide the shuddering sobs he’d thus far been able to stamp down.

The second bag showed up to a slightly more prepared Varric, and he only choked up a handful of times as he sorted the stacks of letters. He hadn’t realized there were this many people in all of Kirkwall, let alone that she’d spoken to.

The third bag came from Ferelden – a collection of letters from the scattered survivors of Lothering’s fall. They spoke of Hawke before the Blight, before all the death and destruction. He could see the glittering seeds of the person Hawke would become, and it broke him yet again.

He had to take a day away from it after getting that bag.

 

***

 _The virtues in the verse and_  
You will live forever  
And all the world will read you  
You will live forever  
In eyes not yet created  
On tongues that are not born  
I have written you down now  
You will live forever

He sent it off to his editor, and they didn’t change a thing. It hit the presses in record time, and they had to do four separate runs before sales died down.

Every copper of the proceeds ended up back in Kirkwall, assisting with the recovery efforts.

Against his editor’s wishes, though, Varric had refused credit at printing. There was no author noted on _Hawke in Flight_ , because she wrote it herself in the people around her.

**Author's Note:**

> I got overly excited to post this - it's only been lightly edited. I may end up coming back to wrangle it again later, but I'm pretty excited about it right now. Also, the lyrics are all there, but they're out of order.
> 
> I cried multiple times while writing this. I hope y'all need tissues too. :)


End file.
